When education meets conflict: Palestinian and Jewish-Israeli parental attitudes towards peace promoting education

The present study examines parental attitudes toward bilingual and peace-promoting education at a school in Israel, and how these affect the behaviors and perceptions of their children studying there. The questions of interest were: (a) what are the parents' perceptions of and attitudes toward the bilingual and peace-promoting education? (b) Are these attitudes in line with the school's ideological framework? (c) How might parental perceptions and attitudes affect the success of the educational endeavor and the children's experiences at this school? Twenty-one Jewish and Palestinian Israeli parents of children attending a bilingual school in Israel partook in this study. A semi-structured interview was used to investigate the perceptions and attitudes of the parents, and the data were analyzed using thematic analysis. The findings indicate that the majority of the parents sent their children to the school for reasons other than the peace-promoting and ideological framework it offers. Essentially, parents were looking to provide their children with a better education than the one available in their immediate residential area. Concurrently, it was found that the parental attitudes appeared to influence children's behavior negatively. The implications of these attitudes and the impact of the school towards peace promotion are discussed.